Being without Hannah while we’d lived it two different places had been exactly as hard as we’d thought it would be. It’d meant late nights and early mornings, hundreds upon hundreds of miles put on my Jeep as we’d worked around Hannah’s hellish schedule, and an expert understanding of Skype.
Jesus, the Skype calls. Even better than phone sex? Video sex.
There’d been the reassurances, too. After she’d spent so long with an asshole like Barry, I made it my mission to show her exactly what it was like to be with someone who loved her more than himself. Someone who would drop what he was doing and drive two hours after she’d had someone code in the ER and needed a warm body to snuggle with to help wash away the memories. Someone who would order her Hawaiian pizza and have it paid for and delivered when she was too exhausted from a double to even think straight. Someone who made sure her gas tank was always full and her favorite coffee was always stocked. It’d turned out washing away her fears and apprehensions had been easy, considering I put her first in everything and Barry never had.
As for him, he’d come slinking back to Hannah only a couple weeks after she’d told him never to come by again—just like I’d known he would. Fortunately, it’d happened on a night I’d been staying there. Answering the door in just my boxer briefs and telling him Hannah was passed out on the bed and too hoarse from screaming to hold a conversation was probably a dick move, but it got the point across. He never bothered her again.
And Barry’s and my relationship? It was exactly as dead as he’d left it ten years ago. I no longer had the compulsion or the desire to breathe life into it just to keep it afloat. So I let it go.
As much as I hated him for what he’d done to Hannah, I also had to admit he played a role in where Hannah and I found ourselves now. Which was, finally, back in Temperance Falls. Together.
Yesterday, I’d borrowed a truck from a friend and went and got my girlfriend. Hannah hadn’t wanted to keep much of her stuff, selling off most of her furnishings one by one when she’d gotten the job offer at Temperance Falls Hospital. She’d said her apartment had never felt like hers, anyway. So we’d packed up what she’d wanted to and driven home…where she belonged.
It hadn’t even been twenty-four hours yet, and already I was antsy as hell because she wasn’t by my side. We’d separated that morning, me going to the brewery and Hannah saying she’d come by and see me before too long.
Too long had turned into hours, which had turned me into an asshole. Rain battered the roof of Pops’ Hops, making my cock tighten in my jeans. Ever since the boathouse, when I’d tasted her for the first time with the sound of the storm going on outside, the rain always made me horny as fuck. Hannah shared my sentiment, sometimes waking me up in the middle of the night if a thunderstorm rolled in, stroking my cock until it was hard as a rock and then hopping on to take what she needed.
And yet she wasn’t here.
“Don’t tell me I have to give you another lecture about those mugs,” AJ said, brow raised as he looked at the glass I was drying vigorously.
“Fuck off.”
With a laugh, he shook his head, filling a glass with our specialty monthly brew for one of our regulars currently perched at the other end of the bar. “Why don’t you do everyone a favor and go check on the tanks? You’re going to scare off our customers with your face.”
I grumbled the whole way, but I did as he suggested because the bastard was right. I couldn’t help it—now that Hannah was mine, really and truly, and she was here, I wanted her next to me whenever fucking possible. She didn’t start at the hospital for three more days, and I wanted to soak up as much of that time as I could.
Fifteen minutes later, I’d checked the tanks, making sure all the temperatures were correct, before heading back to the front, ready to pull my hair out from all the waiting.
But there, sitting at the bar and leaning toward AJ was my girl…my sunshine. Damp strands of hair stuck to her face, her bright red Pops’ Hops T-shirt spattered with rain droplets. No matter how many times I saw her, she never failed to make me stop dead in my tracks. Especially when she smiled.
I narrowed my eyes when I realized she was smiling at something AJ was saying, and with the way my jackass best friend was leaning over the counter, he was flirting and flirting hard.
Fuck and no.
“—just a year is all,” AJ said as I walked toward Hannah on the other side of the bar. “Before a severe labrum tear.”
“Ouch, that’s a rough injury,” she said. “That must’ve been awful, getting a chance like that and having it taken away.”
I came up behind Hannah, bracing my hands on the bartop on either side of her. “Are you seriously using your ‘poor me, I lost my career in the majors’ bullshit on my girlfriend?”
Hannah leaned back against my chest, tilting her face up to look at me, and this time the smile was all for me.
AJ rested his elbow on the bartop and glanced at me, sly grin on his bastard face. “That’s my best story, and you know it. Don’t you have something else to do? Hannah and I were just getting reacquainted.”
“I can reacquaint your ass with my boot, if you’d like.”
The steel in my tone only made him laugh harder, but he knocked twice on the bartop and turned to go. “I’ll see you around, Hannah.”
Before she could even utter a hello, I spun her around on the seat and pulled her straight into my arms. Ducking down, I nuzzled her neck, breathing in her scent, her hair still damp from the rain. “Where’ve you been?”
“I'm guessing you missed me,” she said, running her fingers through my hair.
Instead of answering her, I pulled back and nipped at her bottom lip.
She smiled, her hands cupping my face. “I was at your mom’s. We were trying to change out her planters for the season, but the rain stopped us. She sent me home with some cookies, though. Told me to tell you not to eat them all.”
Her words washed over me, soothing a place inside that had been restless since she’d left this morning. I didn’t know where to start—the fact that she’d been at my mom’s and how happy I was that their decade-long separation hadn’t fractured their relationship, that they’d clicked again, just as they had when we’d been in high school. Or at the fact that she was already calling our place home. She’d spent a single night in our bed, in the space that was now hers, too, and already she was comfortable enough to claim it.
And I wanted us there immediately.
She brushed a finger over my brow. “What’s that face for?”
“That face is because it’s raining and you aren’t riding my cock.”
“Hmm.” She leaned in, brushing her hand across the front of my jeans as she lowered her voice. “Does the brewery have a janitor’s closet we can hide away in? For old time’s sake?”
Oh Jesus. An internal war went on, part of me wanting to drag her back to the office, not caring who heard her scream my name, while the other part wanted her at home, in bed. Legs spread, tits on full display, riding my tongue for hours. I reached down and cupped her ass, tugging her closer. “It has an office, but I want you spread out on our bed.”
She smiled up at me, making no move to remove her hand from between us. “Think AJ will mind if I steal you away?”
“He can deal with it.” I lifted my head, calling over to him. “Hey, AJ!”
He didn’t even turn around, just waved me off, telling me to get the hell out without saying a word, all the while in conversation with a customer. Then he flipped me the bird. Man, I loved my best friend. Even when he hit on my girl.
“He says he’d be glad to watch the place for a while.”
Hannah laughed, pressing her forehead against my chest, then looked up at me, her lip caught between her teeth. Happiness shining in her eyes.
I reached up, brushing my thumb over her bottom lip. Fantasizing about all the things I was going to do to that mouth once we got back to our place. “You ready to go home?”
“Absolutely.”
“Good, because I want to make the most of these next three days before you have to start at the hospital. And by make the most of them, I mean I want you naked as much as fucking possible and riding my cock. Or my face. I’m not picky.”
“Such a charmer.” With her fingers tucked into the waistband of my jeans, she walked backward toward the door, tugging me with her. “C’mon, my love. Let's go listen to the rain.”
* * *
For more books by London Hale, check out or sign up to receive the for all new release, giveaway, and extra content notices.